


Once A Hero

by kally77



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 18:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kally77/pseuds/kally77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between Origin and Not Fade Away, Connor figures out who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once A Hero

They’re halfway back home before his mother speaks. None of them has said a word since they got on the highway. 

Lawrence is asleep, slinged arm cradled to his chest in the passenger seat. Connor glances toward him, every now and then, and reminds himself what the doctors… mages… medical _things_ said; a few days of taking it easy, and he’ll be as good as new. They used magic on him. Connor can feel it, taste it, smell it. Once, it would have made him angry. Then again, once, Lawrence Reilly wasn’t his father.

Colleen is driving, hands at two and ten o’clock on the wheel, her speed never rising past five miles over the limit. There’s a lot of traffic, but it’s fluid. There are more cars going the opposite way. Back to LA. Connor bites the inside of his cheek and shrugs his shoulders. His clothes feel one size too tight, like he mistakenly borrowed someone else’s wardrobe. Someone else’s life. 

He’s looking out at the road, but even so, from the corner of his eye, he can see his mother’s eyes flashing toward him in the rearview mirror. She’s worried. She’s been worried ever since he told them that little white lie about all-night testing and his bench-pressing exploits. He tells himself that yesterday, before… _before_ , he would have noticed just as easily that she was worried. The thing is, yesterday, he didn’t know how to read scents. And now, he does. He knows a whole lot of things whose value is doubtful at best. He was raised in a household in which knowledge is highly prized – knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of yourself – but he never realized there was such a thing as knowing too much.

“There’s something you’re not telling us.”

Connor jerks at the sudden words, bumps his forehead against the window glass. Rubbing at it more from habit than because it hurts, he meets his mother’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Connor has always been a crappy liar. He always worked hard in school because he knew his mother would ask, “Did you try your best?” and she would know if he lied. She would know and she would be disappointed.

“Of course there isn't.” 

The lie comes up so easily, Connor wants to choke. The same thing happened when he saw them after Sahjahn. He kept expecting his cheeks to flush and give him away, but they didn’t. He didn’t feel compelled to look away either. He lied to his parents. He’s lying again now. And he hates that he has to. Hates that it’s so easy, now. Like it once was.

His mother frowns at him before looking back at the road. She doesn’t call him a liar.

“I just don’t understand,” she says after a little while. When she glances at Lawrence, Connor does too. His father is still asleep. She continues almost plaintively. “How did this happen? I mean… You didn’t get bit by a radioactive bug, right?”

A bubble of laughter bursts out of Connor. Sliding to the center of the back seat, he leans forward and plops a resounding kiss onto Colleen’s cheek. 

“I swear I didn’t get bit by a spider, or anything else,” he says, still chuckling. 

Pressing his temple against her headrest, he watches the road with her. She taught him to drive when he was sixteen. She also gave him his first comic book when he was six. She’s the geek of the family. Lawrence is more of a barbecue in the backyard, play catch in the park kind of guy. Connor never cared much for baseball, or football for that matter. Now he wonders what would have happened if he had.

“They said… they’ve never seen anyone like me.” That, at least, is not a lie. “They’ve seen plenty of weird people, just not this particular kind of weird.”

“Of course you’re not weird honey,” she replies automatically, the same way she tells Laura “Of course you’re not fat” whenever Laura looks at those silly teen magazines for a little too long. No nonsense, no hesitation, no doubt, just the simple and inescapable truth, dispensed from the all-knowing maternal mouth. Connor sort of wishes he could hug her right now.

She’s right, though. For the progeny of two vampires, he is extraordinarily not weird. On the contrary, he’s…

 _A healthy, well-adjusted kid_.

In Connor’s memory, Angel-the-CEO’s voice sounds a bit weird, heavy with all the things he couldn’t say. But it still rings true. That’s who Connor is. Who his parents want him to be. All three of them.

“Mom?” The word comes out small, like he’s all of eight all of a sudden, ten years gone in a flash of light — like seventeen years returned in the same flash. The math doesn’t sound quite right, and it bugs him. He was always good at math.

Colleen seems to hear something’s wrong. Who needs superpowers - _enhanced abilities_ \- when you’re a mother? She turns to him for a second, the same soothing smile from countless childhood memories. “Yes honey?”

He swallows the lump in his throat and says, “I’m still me. You know. Being strong and all this stuff. I’m still the same Connor. I haven’t changed.”

He makes it a statement, but in his head, it’s a question. In his head, it sounds like, _Mom, tell me I’m still your son. Tell me nothing is going to be different from now on_.

She glances at him again. Her smile is even softer this time. “I know you haven’t. You’re—”

He’ll never know what she meant to say. Even after, he won’t remember to ask. A sudden, deafening crash of metal tears the air. A semi, three or four cars ahead of them, just barreled across three lanes of traffic, the trailer swinging at a car in its way. The cabin slams into the concrete divider and explodes into flames. Colleen hits the brakes and shouts.

~

Two car accidents, plus the van. Connor has yet to even get a scratch. Did Angel add a ‘good luck’ charm on top of whatever memory mojo he had them do on Connor?

The thought flutters through Connor’s mind as he extirpates himself from the car. He’s lucky he didn’t go straight through the windshield when his mother slammed on the brakes. Good reflexes are a very, very good thing to have. And apparently they’re a family trait, because Colleen managed to avoid ramming into the cars in front of her. She hit the guard rail instead, at such an angle that the whole front of the car didn’t crush her and Lawrence. 

Opening her door first, Connor helps Colleen escape her seat belt and the air bag. She’s shaking when she steps out, and he holds on to her as he hurriedly guides her to the other side of the car, behind the safety rail. 

“Mom? Are you okay?”

He has to repeat the question twice before she finally jerks, blinks, looks at him. Her trembling hands rise to cup his cheeks.

“I’m fine. Are… are you—”

“Fine,” he repeats. “Let me get Dad.”

He has to take her hands and gently pull them off him so she’ll let go. He slides back onto the road. His father freed himself from the belt, and he’s banging his good shoulder against door.

“It’s stuck,” he shouts from behind the window. “I’ll—”

Connor pulls at the door. Hard. He practically tears it off its hinges. “Quick,” he says, reaching in to help his father out. “Hurry!”

Lawrence grunts in pain, but Connor can’t manage to feel sorry, not when a car is screeching its way toward them. It slams into the back just a split second after Connor lifts his father over the guard rail. They stumble a few feet away, where Colleen is watching them with wide, watery eyes. She opens her arms to them, and Connor allows her to hug him for a few seconds before he pulls back.

“What—”

“Stay here,” he says before she can tell him not to go. He presses his phone into her hand. “Call 911. I’ll be right back.”

She says something, and so does his father, but Connor is already back on the road. He can barely hear them, He doesn’t hear the roar of the flames, or the screeching of tires as cars finally stop, or the shouts of fear and pain – or if he hears them, he doesn’t pay them any mind. All he does hear is the crying of a little girl. He first heard her when he helped his mother out. She sounds just like Laura.

He looks around, but his feet keep taking him toward the fire – toward the blue car the trailer pushed against the concrete divider. He spares a glance to the truck cabin, but if the driver didn’t die on impact, there’s no chance now; the flames are strong enough that, even fifty feet away, they’re uncomfortably hot against Connor’s face. The blue car is closer than that.

He reaches it just a second before the second explosion.

The force of the blast pushes him into the air like the wind carrying a feather. For just an instant, he’s flying, falling – and he remembers being flung through a window, falling down several floors and onto concrete. The impact doesn’t hurt quite as badly, this time.

He pushes himself back to his feet at once. His ears are ringing, his kakhis are torn at the knees and he’s scratched, bleeding – hopefully his luck isn’t running out quite yet.

Maybe not; the little girl is still crying.

Still calling out for her dad.

Connor stumbles to the car. Looks into the front seat through the broken driver side window. He clenches his teeth so hard they hurt. The dad’s cheek rests on the airbag like it’s a pillow. His eyes are wide open. He doesn’t blink when blood slides in, flowing from the cut on his temple. The piece of metal that killed him is still sticking out through his hair. The blood seems even brighter on his dark skin.

The little girl is a shade paler - _mocha_ , rings through Connor’s mind. She has her father’s eyes, though. Connor opens the back door and fumbles with the childproof seatbelt. It finally clicks open. The child slides off the seat at once, little hands reaching in between the front seats for her father. 

Connor would like to talk to her, calm her down, but he doesn’t have time. The flames are roaring outside; too close. 

Besides, even if he tried, he doubts he’d be able to say a word. There’s a lump in his throat that has nothing to do with the here and now. He grabs the kid. His hands are almost big enough to span her torso. She can’t be more than – what? Two? Three? 

Too old to forget all this. 

He has memories from when he was three. They’re not happy memories. They’re all real.

The kid continues to cry as he takes her away, loud sobs she buries in her neck, tiny arms tight around his neck.

He remembers Laura holding him just as tightly when they were kids. She held him tight because he was her big brother.

He hopes he still is.

His parents are near the guard rail when he gets there. He hands out the child to Colleen. Shaken – shaking – or not, her maternal instincts kick in and she’s already rocking the kid before Connor starts turning away.

His father’s hand closes on his arm and holds him back.

“Stay,” Lawrence says. “It’s dangerous. Help is coming.”

Yes, it is. Connor can hear sirens in the distance. _Far_ in the distance.

“I’ve got to,” he says, and tugs himself free. 

His father would be proud, a little voice whispers. He stomps on the thought as hard as he can and finds someone else to help.

~

The woman still isn’t letting go.

Connor pats her back awkwardly, hoping it might be a kind of signal and she’ll release him. Her arms tighten just a fraction more around him. She sobs even harder against his shoulder, mumbling things like ‘daughter’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘bless’ and ‘never forget.’

He looks at said daughter, asleep in her grandmother’s arms. She only stopped crying out for her dad when her mom showed up at the hospital. Her name is Lily. It feels right that she’s named after a flower. He looks at the grandmother, too, pleading silently. She takes pity on him and strokes the woman’s back with her free hand.

“Come on, Carrie.”

Carrie doesn’t stop crying – and why should she? She just lost her husband. She certainly has a reason to cry. She does let go of Connor, though, and takes a step back. She wipes her eyes. Mascara streaks down her cheek, gray-black on blotchy pink, but she’s still beautiful. Cut her hair short and she’d look just like—

Connor buries his hands in his pockets. He wishes he had a handkerchief or something.

“May God bless you,” the grandmother says, voice quiet but full of emotion. “You were acting as His angel today.”

A shiver courses down Connor’s spine. He’s not all that comfortable with religious talk. His parents made him do the full altar boy thing, but for no reason he could ever understand he always felt out of place in churches. Like he didn’t belong there. It doesn’t help that she said that word – that name. It doesn’t help that her daughter and granddaughter remind Connor of people he used to know, once, in another life.

People he used to love.

“It was… it was nothing,” he tries, but winces as he says it. Smooth, telling these women that saving their daughter and granddaughter was not important. Very smooth. “I mean, anyone would have done the same.”

Anyone, he says, but in his mind, it’s his father’s face that flashes – not the father that tried to hold him back. How does _he_ deal with grateful people? Not any better than Connor, probably. Or maybe it’s just easier to escape at night. Connor tries again.

“I’ve got to go. I think my parents are ready to leave. Bye now.”

Carrie gives him another hug, another hiccupping “thank you”, and finally he can leave. He wasn’t even lying. His parents are standing to the side of the waiting room. Paramedics took everyone here. Connor practically had to bat them away when they tried to get a look at his knees. He’d have had a hard time explaining how his scratches had healed that fast.

His mother strokes his arm and smiles when he reaches them. The airbag raised a bruise on her face, but doctors looked at her and she’s fine. So is his father.

Lawrence nods grimly. “The rental’s in the parking lot. Let’s go.”

They file toward the exit. Connor can’t help looking back at the room. He meets several people’s gazes, and they each nod at him, smile, mouth words of thanks. Connor pretends not to notice. His eyes do stop on Lily, across the room. Her head rests on her mom’s shoulder, curly hair framing her face. She’s awake now, looking at him with huge eyes. Her hand lets go of her mom’s t-shirt and rises, just a little, just enough to wave bye at him.

Connor catches himself waving back.

When they get to the rental car, his father hands him the keys without a word and climbs in the passenger seat while Colleen gets in the back. Connor feels too wired up to drive, but he can understand his mother not wanting to get behind the wheel now. He closes his eyes for a second before getting in, takes a deep breath. It helps a little.

They’re not out of the parking lot yet that Lawrence clears his throat. “Connor… about what you did back there—”

Colleen hisses behind him. “We’re proud of you,” she says, a little too loud. When Connor glances at the rearview mirror, he finds that she’s not looking at him but at Lawrence.

“Of course,” Lawrence says, placating. “Proud. But—” He half turns back toward Colleen. “I’ve got to say it. You agreed with that. It might as well be now.”

It’s not often that they disagree, let alone argue. It always feels worse when it’s about him. Connor’s hands clench on the wheel. He keeps his eyes on the road.

“Son…”

Connor’s heart skips a beat or two. He has to force his mind to pay attention to what comes next.

“I don’t know what they told you in that place. You’re… special, all right, but… we don’t want you to take risks just because you think you can’t get hurt.”

Several seconds pass before Connor realizes that Lawrence is done, and waiting for some kind of reply. He struggles to find one.

“I don’t. Think I can’t get hurt, I mean. I don’t think that. I know I can.”

He also knows exactly how much force it takes for his lips to split, for bruises to bloom on his skin or for his ribs to break. He’s not going to say that much, though.

“I could help, so I did,” he finishes with a shrug. “I would have done the same thing even before we went to Wolfram & Hart.”

Even as he says it, he realizes it’s true. He would have. There’s no way he could have stayed on the side of the road when there was something he could do to help. Relief washes over him. This is good. It means he’s not as different as he feared he might be. It also means he didn’t do it because of that big, dark pool of guilt he discovered inside him just hours ago – or at least not _only_ because of it.

He is his father’s son after all.

~

At dinner, Laura keeps gaping at him, like she did, a few years ago, the first time he had to admit he had a girlfriend. At least, that’s what happened in his memories.

“Laura, honey? Would you help me in the kitchen?”

Laura blinks and follows their mother automatically. Connor ducks his head; he doesn’t care to check if Lawrence is staring at him too. That talk in the car was enough. Why did they have to tell Laura more than “we had a car accident but everybody’s fine”?

The voices coming from the kitchen are barely any louder than the sound of Connor’s fork hitting his plate, but he hears them as clearly as though Colleen and Laura were in the dining room. He’s always known he had good ears; now he realizes they’re a lot better than good.

They’re talking about him; about what he did, and about giving him some space. No questions, Colleen admonishes. Laura agrees, but her tone of voice says she’s less than truthful.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Connor says abruptly when they come back in with dessert. He picks up his plate, silverware and glass, goes to put them in the dishwasher, and then straight up to his room. Back on Quor’toth, he washed the dishes in the stream by the cave. Two carved wooden bowls and spoons, and knives of bone and rock. 

He leans back against his closed door for a moment, trying to chase the memory away, to replace it with happier ones before it can threaten the peace in his mind. The memory doesn’t fade, though. Thankfully, neither does the peace.

He goes into the bathroom he shares with Laura to brush his teeth. The mindless task stops him from thinking. But after he has rinsed his mouth and set the toothbrush down, he glances at himself in the mirror, and freezes.

He’s still the same. 

Isn’t he?

His face is the same, round like his mother’s – or so he always thought. His hair is a bit shorter, maybe, but it still flops in his eyes. And his eyes…

There were no mirrors when he was growing up. The first time he grew up that is. He saw himself for the first time in a mirror at the motel where he and Holtz stayed. He remembers staring at his eyes for the longest time; remembers being scared at how empty, how cold they seemed. The eyes of a killer, Holtz said when he caught him staring. The same eyes as his parents. But when he looked at Angel’s, they weren’t anything like that.

That dreadful summer, he didn’t look into mirrors. Not once. He just couldn’t.

His eyes, now, are still the same blue. But they seem alive. Normal. Just… him.

“Practicing your smile for your groupies?”

Connor blinks. Turns to the door connecting the bathroom to Laura’s room – the door he forgot to lock. She stands with her shoulder to the wall, arms crossed and a teasing smile on her lips.

“My what?” he asks dully.

Her smiles widens a little more. “You know. Your groupies. All the girls that will swoon at your feet when they realize what a hero you are.”

Rolling his eyes at her is as easy, as familiar as breathing. “Swoon at my feet? You’re not even making any sense.”

Not his smartest retort, but it’ll have to do. He goes back into his room and closes the door behind him. He plops onto his bed with a sigh, hands behind his head as he stares at the ceiling. He wishes it were as easy to close the door on his memories – the real ones.

Then again, Laura walks in just seconds later, so maybe she’s not that easy to shut out either.

She drags the chair from his desk to his bed side and sits astride it, arms over the back and her chin on top of them. “What happened in LA?” she asks. “And I won’t believe you if you say nothing, so don’t.”

Connor looks at her. She’s observing him intently, like she can read him as easily as one of her magazines. Can she see through him? Can she see who he is, beyond the layer of Connor Reilly? See the burn edges, the torn patches, the scratches, bruises and missing pieces in his heart and soul?

He knows they’re there – they have to be; they’re part of him just as much as his memories are – but he can’t really feel them. It should hurt, shouldn’t it? He’s been waiting for the pain to start ever since he woke up on that table with Sahjahn on top of him. He’s felt a few twinges, but nothing more than that.

“So?” Laura prods impatiently.

Connor blinks. “We went to that lawyers’ firm. They told me I was adopted and I got to meet my biological father. He’s a superhero, complete with superpowers and the cape. He said I can be one too if I want.”

He says it all in a deadpan voice. He’s not even sure which bits are true and which aren’t. Laura stares at him with wide eyes – and then they narrow and she huffs. Quick like only a little sister can be, she pulls the pillow from under his head and whacks him in the face with it.

“Jerk!”

She drops the pillow before he can pull it from her hands.

“I wish you really were adopted,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “That way I wouldn’t have to be so embarrassed about how much of a geek you are.”

“ _You_ said I was a hero,” he replies, still deadpan.

She rolls her eyes at the ceiling and lets out a growl of frustration. “Urgh. Idiot.”

She stomps out of the room and bangs his door shut behind her, then her door as well for good measure. Connor can’t help but smile. Everything changed, but at the same time, everything is still the same.

~

Sleep is long to come.

Connor is scared to let it take him.

Last night, he was too tired – mentally as well as physically – to resist the pull. He crashed on the extra bed in his dad’s room, with his mom already asleep in the armchair in the corner. He would have traded with her if he hadn’t been so afraid to wake her. What if she talked to him? What if she asked where he had been, what he had done? What if she looked at him and knew, just knew, that he wasn’t her son anymore? All those questions faded in the face of exhaustion, and he had a restful, dreamless night.

He just knows that tonight, it won’t be that easy. He knows that he’ll dream. He knows they won’t be nice dreams.

How could they be?

Before this life, before Angel… did what he did, Connor hadn’t slept in days. Every time he tried to, nightmares surged. Some featured demons, others people he loved. In all of them, _he_ was the monster hiding under the bed, behind a door – or simply in plain sight.

Surely, once he lets himself sleep, the nightmares will return, like his memories did.

It’s close to four in the morning when he caves in and slips into slumber.

The dreams come soon after.

He dreams of Lily, except in his dream, she’s named for another flower. She cries and cries and calls for her father. He pulls her out of that car again, takes her to safety, and her little arms are warm and snug around his neck. 

“It’s okay,” dream-Connor murmurs, fingers stroking curly strands. “Daddy’s here.”

When he reaches the side of the highway, there is no guard rail – and no highway anymore either. Instead, the park where his family picnicked every Sunday for years stretches out in front of him. His daughter laughs and wiggles in his arms, demanding to be put down. Connor sets her in the grass and stops to watch her run. Sitting on a blanket under a tree, Cordelia opens her arms for her, and her smile is brighter than the midday sky.

“You didn’t ask,” Angel says.

Connor glances at him. Angel is holding an umbrella made out of glass so large that it covers both of them.

“What didn’t I ask?”

Angel doesn’t reply. He’s looking at Connor, now. The tree and the blanket are gone. The sky is still as bright.

“Do you want to know?”

Connor grows frustrated. “Know what?”

“I knew. When you said goodbye, I knew.” Angel’s hand closes on Connor’s shoulder. He squeezes gently, even smiles. “It’s okay, son,” he says, and then he’s gone.

The tree and blanket are back. Connor’s mom calls out for him. “Come eat, honey, before your dad finishes all the corn.”

Laughing at his father’s protests, Connor runs to them, plopping himself down on the blanket between his mom and Laura. Her hair is up in pig tails, like it always was when she was a little girl. Connor tugs at it, like he always did.

“Mom!” she whines.

“Connor,” his mom chides. “Is that really how a hero behaves?”

Connor pouts at her. “I’m not a hero.”

She clucks her tongue as she hands him a plate of all his favorite picnic food. “Of course you are, honey. Do you want a bread roll?”

He nods and takes bread from the basket she holds out to him. They don’t talk of heroes anymore, not even when Connor notices the sword resting next to him on the blanket, close enough to be picked up in just a second. It’s a nice sword, but a plastic knife is a lot more useful to butter his bread.

Connor eats, and teases his sister, and it’s just one more Sunday at the park. Sunlight filters through the branches of the tree and caresses his face. He looks up, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, he’s in his bed. It’s morning.

Blinking furiously, Connor stares at the ceiling. He can see the pinpoints from when he pinned a poster up there – only to have it fall on him in the middle of the night.

“All right,” he says quietly. “That was weird.”

Weird, definitely, but not as bad as he expected. Not bad at all, in fact. He still remembers the smile on Angel’s face when he said it was okay. 

Connor mulls over that for a moment. What was his subconscious trying to tell him? That it’s okay for him to be Connor Reilly, still? That it’s what Angel wants? At least, that’s how Connor wants to interpret it.

The other thing is easier to figure out. In the dream, he had no idea what Angel meant, but now he does. A boulder sits in his stomach, weighing him down.

He didn’t ask about Cordelia.

He stares at the ceiling a little longer before finally pushing himself out of bed and to his desk. He turns his computer on and waits less than patiently for it to boot up. He types her name in a search engine and hesitates for a second before clicking the search button. He doesn’t know how he feels about her. He doesn’t know what he would say if he ran across her. But he needs to know, that much he is sure of.

The first link is an obituary, dated only a few weeks earlier. He turns the computer off and rubs at the goose bumps on his arms. 

A knock on the door startles him before he can form a single thought.

“Honey? Are you awake?”

Connor croaks an answer.

“We’re going to look at cars. Do you want to come?”

Does he? He’s not even sure. 

“All right,” he says, because being with them is better than the alternative. “Give me a minute.”

He only looks for his stakes and sword for a second before calling himself an idiot and getting dressed.

~

Halfway across the lot, Connor’s parents are talking to a salesman about an unassuming little sedan. Laura is a little further, looking at a row of lined up Volkswagen Beetles in all the colors of the rainbow. She punched his arm seven times when they arrived, with seven gleeful “punch buggy”. Connor muttered “Ow!” and rubbed his arm; truth is, he didn’t feel a thing.

Hands deep in his pockets, he walks through the lot, looking at cars absently. Memories flow back and forth through his mind. The first time he saw a car, moments after arriving in this world, he thought they were animals, or demons. The first time he drove one, he imagined himself driving across America, maybe with a friend or two, all the way to New York, maybe; the farthest he ever drove to date was to college.

He stops in front of a red sports car, sleek and shiny; Angel has one just like it. He has a dozen just as nice. But when he drove Connor to Vail’s place, they took the old black convertible.

A little part of Connor wonders – if things had been different, would he have learned to drive in that car rather than in a grey minivan? Would Angel have taught him?

It’s silly to wonder, he knows it. Things are what they are, and that’s the end of it.

And still, he wonders. Did Angel have a say in writing the new scenario of Connor’s life? Did he decide someone else – someone who wasn’t him – would teach Connor to drive, and everything else that went with that: tie his shoes, ride a bike, knot a tie, or even—

“Funny, I had you pegged down as a hybrid kind of guy.”

Connor blinks and turns to the girl. His first reply – he _is_ a hybrid, but how does she know that? – dies on his lips, and all that comes out is a very eloquent, “Huh?”

The girl grins and pushes a strand of straw-blond hair behind her ear with the hand that’s not holding a water bucket. She’s wearing a shirt to the colors of the dealership, tied up in a knot over her stomach. Her cut-off jean shorts show off miles of slim, tanned legs. It’s her smile he comes back to, though. She looks vaguely familiar. He glances at her nametag – just the nametag, not the hint of cleavage revealed by two undone buttons – and when he sees ‘Kirsten’ things start clicking into place.

“Weren’t you in the recycling club at Freemont High?” she asks, still smiling. “Recycle all branches of government and save a tree? Connor, right?”

He nods and grins sheepishly. “Admittedly not our best slogan. And the Social Studies teachers were pretty miffed we called for recycling notes from their classes.”

She laughs, and he remembers that laugh better than he does her face. She was in that club, too. Junior when he was a senior, he thinks. He wasn’t looking much at girls by then; one at a time always was good enough for him. He waits for the usual pang to strike when he thinks of Tracy, but nothing comes. Maybe he’s finally over her.

Or maybe he’s still numb from that obituary he’s been trying so hard not to think about. He’ll have to read it fully, though. He wants to know where she’s buried. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he already knows he’ll borrow the soon to be acquired replacement car and go put flowers on her grave. He never really got to say goodbye.

Kirsten is giving him an expectant look, delicate eyebrows arched as she waits for him to say… Blinking, he rewinds her last few words. College. She asked him where he goes.

“Stanford,” falls automatically from his lips. 

“Really?” She sounds impressed.

So did his father, he remembers suddenly. He’s not sure why he feels so pleased.

“How about you?” he asks, because it’s only polite. 

She shrugs. “UCLA. If I clean enough windshields for my dad to pay the tuition.” She glances toward the salesman, then gives Connor a lopsided smile. “Or more accurately, if he sells enough cars. Are those your folks?”

He glances at them. They seem so small, from here. So fragile. Angel never seemed either of these things.

“Yeah, they are. And your future is safe, because they’re buying. Kinda have to since the old car is totaled.”

Her smile fades to lines of worry. “Accident?”

Connor nods. “On the highway, yeah. We were lucky. It wasn’t pretty.”

A tiny frown furrows her brow. “You don’t mean that crash yesterday on Interstate—”

“Five,” he finishes with her. “Yeah, that one.”

She shakes her head. “Wow. I saw that on the news. It was…” Her voice trails off and her eyes widen as she stares at him. “No way! It was you, wasn’t it? It was you who saved that little girl!”

Connor’s face feels like he’s standing in front of an open oven. “I don’t know what—”

She doesn’t let him finish. “They said a college student traveling with his parents… it _so_ was you! Wasn’t it?”

At least, Connor thinks grimly, the news didn’t get his name. Small favors. He bets Angel would have heard about it.

(A small, very small voice asks, _would it have been so bad?_ and he squashes it the best he can.)

Kirsten is still waiting for the answer she’s already sure she knows. No point in lying, is there? Connor sighs and looks away, scratching the back of his neck.

“I was just trying to help,” he mutters.

Kirsten doesn’t reply. When he risks a glance at her again, the excitement on her face has disappeared, although he’s not sure he can interpret her expression.

“It’s pretty hot out here,” she says more calmly. “Do you want something to drink?”

The most curious idea flashes through Connor’s mind. But no, that can’t be right. She’s not flirting with him. Is she?

~

Kirsten _is_ flirting with him. Isn’t she?

Sitting on a desk in the air-conditioned office, she’s kicking her legs back and forth in front of her, and Connor doesn’t know whether to look at that, or at the gap in her shirt where a bit of blue lace peeks every time she pushes her hair over her shoulder, or at her mouth as she tells him some amusing story about what happened in the recycling club after he graduated. She has very pretty legs. And hair. And lips. And laugh. 

And Connor _so_ doesn’t need this right now.

He feels like he’s fourteen and at his first school dance again. He even has a coke in hand like he did then, and no idea about what to say that won’t make him seem like an absolute dork.

Some part of him completely wants to blame Angel for that.

“I’m sorry,” she says as she finishes her story, a half smile on her lips. “I must be boring you.”

He belatedly realizes that he didn’t laugh at the punchline and offers a weak chuckle. “No, of course not. I just… it’s weird to hear about Freemont. I mean…”

He shrugs, unsure how to finish, and takes a sip of his drink.

“Weird to hear that things are still the same even now that you don’t go there anymore?” she asks. “I’m already starting to feel that way. It’s like, these classes and teachers were there as backdrop and secondary characters in the movie of my life, so they shouldn’t be there anymore after I leave.” She finishes with a self-deprecating grin. “Silly, huh?”

Connor freezes and lowers his can of coke. “No, not silly at all,” he says, and the words come out a little strangled. “That really is how it feels.”

Or almost; in his mind, it’s not a movie, just an elaborate series of memories. He could almost have believed that all of it was made up – no school named Freemont High, no recycling club, no desk in Mrs. Hille’s room with three stars and a moon crescent engraved into the wood. He didn’t carve them, but he remembers tracing the outlines with a black marker and getting a detention for it. Did someone else trace them, in the reality before everyone’s memories were changed? Was someone else the vice-president of the recycling club? Did they come up with better slogans than he did? Or maybe they were their slogans, and the memories somehow attributed them to Connor. Damn but it’s all so confusing and—

Fingers tipped with short, shiny nails snap in front of his face and startle him out of his thoughts. He blinks and looks at Kirsten, who slipped off the desk to stand in front of him.

“Earth to Mars,” she says, grinning. “You still there?”

Connor strokes the back of his head. “Sorry. I was thinking about… something. You were saying?”

In just a flash, her cheeks turn as red as his own feel. She looks away and takes a sip from her drink. “I was just… wondering how Tracy is.”

Still caught in thoughts of the world as it used to be, Connor needs a second to readjust to the world that is now; it’s long enough for Kirsten to ask, “Or maybe you guys aren’t together anymore?”

And if Connor had any doubts left about whether she was flirting with him or not, this would dispel them for good. He is absolutely certain that Tracy and Kirsten never exchanged more than two words in passing. So the only reason why she might want to know…

Right. Back to being fourteen again. And stammering like an idiot when a girl a year older than he was asked him to dance.

“I don’t… huh… We’re not. I mean, together. She went to Notre Dame and we sort of… fell apart.”

Well, that and some exchange student from Sweden a head taller than Connor living in her co-ed dorm. Not that Kirsten needs to know the details.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replies, and almost sounds like she means it.

The silence that stretches between them is not as uncomfortable as Connor would have expected. He looks out the window; his parents are now looking at some SUVs, with Kirsten’s father at their side, pointing out to this or that on the cars. Connor can’t help but smile.

“He’s good,” he says, gesturing toward them so Kirsten will know what he’s referring to. “My mom was ready to swear off SUVs.”

Without looking at her, he can hear Kirsten’s grin in her words. “He better be. I’m taking a full load on my first year and the tuition isn’t going to be pretty.”

When he turns to her, her eyes are sparkling. 

“Would you like to go see a movie or something, sometime?” falls from his lips before he even knows he has said a word.

Kirsten looks just as surprised as he feels. Just as pleased, too. “I’d love that. Do you have anything in particular in mind?”

He really doesn’t. It must show on his face, because she nods and doesn’t wait for him to reply.

“Do you have a cell phone?” she asks, and when he says yes she asks for his number, her own phone already in her hands. The next second, his phone buzzes once in his pocket; text message.

“Just call me and we’ll make plans,” she says, all but beaming.

Connor has a clear feeling that if he doesn’t call her, she will call him. 

“And I’d better go back to my buckets,” she says with another look outside. Connor’s parents and her father are coming toward the office. “It was nice seeing you again!”

And with that, she pitches her empty can in a recycling bin, picks up her water bucket, and slips out of the office, holding the door open for their parents. She throws him a last smile before letting go.

Connor catches himself smiling back.

~

They leave in the new SUV, with Colleen behind the wheel and Laura babbling about how she wants a VW Beetle as her first car. Their dad teases her about how she’ll need to drive before that, and the three of them banter back and forth. It’d be Connor’s cue to jump in, but no teasing line comes to his lips, and he just smiles a little absently as he watches the road outside his window, so familiar and at the same time so new.

Halfway back home, his phone buzzes, announcing a text message. He checks it and sees the text is from a college buddy. He’s about to thumb it open when he sees the message underneath it. Kirsten’s. He opens hers instead, expecting to find her phone number, or a simple, ‘nice running into you’ or something.

Instead, her message causes his heart to skip a beat. 

_I always liked you a lot. I hope you’ll call._

His cheeks feel on fire and he turns a little more toward the window so no one will wonder why he’s blushing. 

It’s past noon when they get home, take-out in hand. They have lunch together, and Connor waits until Laura has left the table before asking about borrowing the car for the afternoon. When his mother asks where he’s going and he answers he doesn’t know, it’s not a lie. He really doesn’t. Not yet. 

Half an hour later, he does. He didn’t read the obituary, just scanned it for the address. Not in LA proper, but still a couple of hours away. He might as well leave now.

He’s at the florist, staring at too many types of flowers, too many colors, when his phone rings. 

“I left my cardigan at the dealership,” his mother says when he picks up. “Could you swing there and get it for me? They said they’d have it ready for you.”

“No problem.” He hesitates before saying, voice as small as though he were ten, “Mom?”

She sounds distracted when she replies, someone else talking in the background. “Yes honey?”

For a second, he’s ready to ask her what flowers he should get. The question remains stuck in his throat. How would he explain it?

“I… I won’t be back before nightfall. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

She says she won’t, but he knows she doesn’t mean it, and it’s all right.

Sliding the phone back in his pocket, he stares at the flowers some more. His mother’s favorites are carnations – white or pink. Laura’s are tulips – orange ones. Why does he know what their favorite flowers are and has no clue what Cordelia’s was, or even her favorite color? He should have asked. He should know. Granted, it was a crazy few months, and he had no idea what a relationship was supposed to be like, but still, such a simple thing and he has no idea.

His throat is tight when the saleslady asks if he has chosen yet. Too tight for words. He gestures at the flowers closest to him.

“Lilies?” she asks.

Is that what they are? It fees appropriate, somehow. 

“Yes, please. An assortment? I mean, a bit of every color?”

A few minutes later, he leaves with a large bouquet. He keeps it on the passenger seat as he drives to the dealership. When he enters the office, Kirsten is alone in there, now wearing jeans and a t-shirt rather than her car-washing outfit. Her smile is brighter than the sun outside.

“I’d be flattered you couldn’t stay away,” she says, teasing, “but your mom called so I know you didn’t come back for me.”

Connor didn’t think he would smile this afternoon, but he does when he accepts the cardigan from her. “Who says I didn’t volunteer to come get this?”

She chuckles. “Your mom did. She said you took the car for a drive and would come by. Going anywhere fun?”

Connor’s smile melts away. He looks at the cardigan in his hands when he answers. He’s not sure _why_ he answers; it’d certainly be easier to lie. But there have been too many lies already in this life – in all his lives.

“Actually… I’m going to put flowers of a friend’s tomb.”

Kirsten brushes a hand against his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

He shakes his head as he looks up at her again. “It’s not like you could have guessed.” He tries to make a joke but it falls flat. “My mom would have needed to know to tell you about that too.”

She looks at him for a few seconds, lips pinched, a tiny frown pulling at her eyebrows. Connor is ready to say goodbye and leave – way to kill the mood – but before he can do so, she asks, “Want company? It’s not the kind of place where anyone should go alone.”

Connor doesn’t know what surprises him the most – that she offered, or that he wants to accept.

“It’s pretty far,” he warns. “Couple hours just to get there, and the traffic coming back will be murder.”

“That still doesn’t tell me whether you want company.”

Does he want to mesh his old life – his real life – with this new, dreamy, almost perfect one until this one feels real again? 

“I… yeah. I kinda do.”

“Okay, then.”

It’s too easy, some part of Connor whispers when they walk out to the car. Like someone is fixing this. Playing with his life again. Hanging curtains over broken windows.

Except… he’s not broken anymore. And Angel has no reason to believe he is, no reason to interfere. Does he?

He opens the passenger door for Kirsten; his dad – Lawrence – taught him that. Kirsten flashes him a smile and a thank you. He only remembers the flowers when she picks them up before climbing in. 

“Oh, I love lilies. These are gorgeous.”

And suddenly, the knot that binds Connor’s heart feels a little less tight.

~

Kirsten may have liked him for a while – and that thought continues to awaken bat-sized butterflies in Connor’s stomach – but she’s not an idiot. He can’t help but approve when she has him stop by her father so she can let him know where she’s going, and more importantly with whom. Safety first; that’s something Connor can understand, even if there’s a few uncomfortable seconds when her father scrutinizes him through the window. He’s smiling, but it’s the kind of smile that spells out very clearly, _hurt my little girl and I will make you regret being born_. Connor smiles back and tries to appear nonthreatening. He’s not sure he remembers how to do that.

The first few minutes of driving are kind of awkward. Connor has never been all that good at talking to girls, not in any life, and it doesn’t help that he has spent the last couple of days trying to figure out who he is, now. But when they hit the highway, Kirsten starts playing with the radio presets until she finds something she likes, and Connor can’t keep quiet anymore.

“You call this music?” he asks, mock-horrified, and throws her a quick grin. “Heathen.”

Her gasp of outrage is full of suppressed laughter. “Not music. Art. What would _you_ have us listen to?”

They talk music, and it’s easy to forget that, until a year and half ago, the only music he knew was that of the wind whistling through the poisonous leaves of ka’dar trees, or the rain splattering over burning lava with hissing and crackling harmonies. They argue about a couple of bands, but find common ground on a few more. Kirsten mentions this new local band she likes but that Connor never heard of; she says, almost too casually, that they’re playing in a nearby club next weekend. Before Connor even knows it, he has agreed to go with her to check them out.

He looks at her during a lull in the conversation, and with an inward grin tells himself that she’s a very dangerous woman. He kinda likes that.

Talking is easier, after that. Movies, and they’re both waiting for the same blockbusters to come out in a few weeks. Television, and they spend a few fun minutes abusing so-called reality TV. College, and Kirsten admits to her fears that she’s rushing too fast on a track to her major. Hearing her talk about it, though, about what she wants to be – an architect – and the passion that transpires through her words when she talks of green materials and how she wants to be part of a new way of building things, Connor can’t help but grin.

“What’s so funny?” she asks when she notices, and there’s just a twinge of hurt in her words.

“Nothing,” Connor says quickly. “I was just thinking, I wish I was half as sure of my major as you are. I’m sure you’re gonna do great things.”

She’s really very pretty when she blushes.

She’s really very pretty, period.

As they jump from one topic to the next, time passes in a flash. Connor is almost surprised when the disembodied voice of the GPS tells him to take the next right. After that, they both fall silent, and it’s only a few more minutes until they reach the graveyard.

The sun is still high above the horizon, the air still very warm when they step out of the air-conditioned car, and yet an icy shiver courses through Connor. As luck would have it, Kirsten notices and gives him a sad little smile. Connor hides his embarrassment by grabbing the bouquet from the back seat.

The obituary told him where to look, but it’s a big place. 

“What was her name?” Kirsten asks, sotto voce.

Connor chokes up a little when he tells her. They start looking together, and in the end she’s the one who finds Cordelia’s tomb.

The headstone is white marble, topped by a weeping cherub. Under her name, two dates. And beneath that, two lines.

_Your love will light our way,  
your memory will ever be with us_

Connor’s throat closes when his eyes stop on the word ‘memory’. He looks up at the cherub again. He has the sudden and completely irrational need to punch someone.

And not just anyone.

“She was barely any older than us,” Kirsten whispers.

As though her words awakened him, Connor takes in a shaky breath. One step forward, and he places the flowers down, next to the fresh spray of white roses. They look expensive. The kind a CEO would have his secretary buy. Except that Connor would bet these were delivered in person.

When he draws back again, Kirsten’s hand brushes against his. He takes it without thinking and hold on tight.

“You said she was your friend?” she says, still as quiet. “How did you meet her?”

How, indeed. He could come up with a story, a pretty lie, but it would feel like he was betraying both women.

“She helped me,” he says, and the words tear at his throat. “There was a time when I was really messed up. She helped me. She was kind to me. And I…”

He can’t finish. His fingers tighten over Kirsten’s for a second, probably enough to hurt, but she doesn’t protest.

“And you loved her?” she asks ever so gently

He nods jerkily and doesn’t explain. He’s not sure he’d know how if he tried.

“I’m sorry,” Kirsten offers. “Do you want me to give you a moment?”

Does he want a moment? Connor isn’t sure. He said all there was to say long ago. He’ll never get an answer, and maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

“No, it’s okay,” he says – almost croaks. “Let’s go.”

They’re back in the parking lot before he realizes he’s still holding on to Kirsten’s hand. He squeezes one last time before letting go and murmuring, “Thanks.”

She smiles at him and doesn’t answer.

~

Days pass; a couple of weeks. Things get calmer inside Connor’s head.

He still thinks about it all. Memories pop up at the strangest times. More and more, they feel like dreams. Weird, fucked up dreams, but dreams. Once or twice, he catches himself considering going back to LA just to make sure. Just to see Angel, look in his eyes, and _know_ it was more than a dream. He doesn’t go. He’s afraid if he does, he’ll have to choose between two lives, two realities, and he has no clue which way he’d go. Not knowing scares him more than the possibility of losing everything he has here.

At first, his parents still watch him closely like they expect him to do _something_. Run a marathon, break a wall, or get in a fight maybe? Do they even know? Connor pretends he doesn’t notice, and little by little, they get back to normal.

The one thing that makes everything easier is the continued presence of Kirsten in Connor’s life. She takes him to see that band she mentioned. They go see a couple of movies together. She’s fun to be around _and_ she’s not pushy. That last part might be the best thing about her. She opens doors, and waits to see if Connor will walk through them. Sometimes he does. Sometimes not. She takes it all in stride. They haven’t kissed yet. Connor isn’t sure whether they’re girlfriend and boyfriend or not yet. He just knows he likes to be with her, she looks like she enjoys being with him, and that’s enough for now.

One bright afternoon, he’s waiting for her in a coffee shop. She’s supposed to help him write a resume for these internships he’s applying to. When she sends an apologetic text – new delivery and plenty of cars to wash – he replies that it’s okay; they’ll meet later for dinner. He’d offer his help but the last time he did that they ended up drenched, and her father was less than impressed. Also, he’s been putting this off for two weeks, and he really needs to do it today. He’s a bit bummed about having to do the stupid resume on his own, but it’s not like she’s having fun.

‘Be truthful,’ that booklet he got from the campus library says. But what is truthful as far as his life goes? Would ‘proficient in the use of swords, stakes, crossbows and adept at hand to hand combat’ help him get an internship? How about ‘can sense nearby demons’? That might be something a firm like Wolfram & Hart would be interested in, and for a moment he catches himself imagining what it would be like to intern for Angel. Connor could fetch his coffee – or more likely, his blood; or maybe not. Angel never did like to feed in front of him. They could patrol together – if Angel still patrols, that is. It’s hard to picture him at the head of that firm, for all that Connor saw him in action.

The scenario is still playing out through his mind when the familiar tingles prickle at the back of his neck. He looks up, and couldn’t be more surprised to see Angel standing there, as out of place in this coffee shop as Connor once felt in this world.

They chat, and Angel tells him what Connor supposes are jokes – hard to tell with Angel – and it feels… pretty awesome. Even more so than that little fantasy from moments ago. Connor never dreamed of sharing this with Angel. He never even knew they could have this. That they can have it now makes it all worth it – or almost. Even with the easiness of the conversation, there’s a shadow lurking over them, a question Angel is asking with every look, every gesture, every smile – but not in words.

Connor has to answer.

“I know you’re my father.”

A weight lifts off Connor’s shoulders. He’s not going to go back with Angel, he’s not going to leave this life behind, but he can at least thank his father for giving him this chance. He tries to find the words to say all that; hopes that Angel gets it. Again, hard to tell.

It’s too soon that Angel leaves. Even as they say goodbye, Connor doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. They don’t belong to the same world anymore, and that thought just _hurts_ deep inside. 

He keeps staring at nothing for a while, and then – god but her timing is amazing – Kirsten takes Angel’s seat. Her thousand watts smile dims within seconds. 

“Hey. What’s wrong?”

How well does she know him already that she can tell something’s off with just a look?

“Nothing,” Connor says, and it’s not really a lie. “All done with your cleaning, then?”

Lie or not, Kirsten doesn’t buy it. “You’re changing the subject. Are you mad because I was stuck at the dealership?”

“No!” He reaches across the table to rest his hand on top of hers, like this simple touch will prove he’s not lying. “No, it’s not you, I just…”

He just doesn’t know how to explain it, that’s all. 

Kirsten doesn’t push. She shifts her hand under his until their fingers entwine, and tilts her head to the papers in front of him.

“How far did you get?”

It takes him a second to realize she’s talking about the resume. “I finished, actually. I… had help.”

“Oh? From who?”

 _My father_ would only lead to awkward questions, because she met Laurence and it wouldn’t take her long to realize Connor isn’t talking about him.

Connor swallows hard. “A friend. Someone who helped me, like… like Cordelia did.”

At the moment he says it, he realizes that every word is true.

“Oh?” Kirsten says again. “What did she wants?”

“He,” Connor says automatically. It suddenly dawns on him that he has no idea why Angel came.

Wait a minute. Angel came for _coffee_.

Right.

That can’t possibly be good.


End file.
